Oblivion's Kiss

Chapter Five: Hunted

I’ve been raised in a world where material was everything. Fantasy, fables and child’s 

play didn’t exist.  I never had ‘visits’ from the tooth fairy and Santa was just a friction of another child’s wild imagination. It was never mine. 

If I wanted something, I asked for it, and I got it. No questions asked. As long if it was real, it was 

okay. It was how I was raised. There was always a psychological or scientific 

explanation for everything. In this world, people believed that they were safe from 

harm with technological devices and weapons. 

The police were our guardians and church our key to heaven after death. 

Everything was solid and decided. So I thought.

I came to the conclusion, that the hunters were like some kind of keepers of death, 

reaping us from life when we somehow cheated death with those modern gadgets, no 

matter how impure and wrong they may seem. I felt safe in that belief, keeping 

everything I was raised to believe reasonable and just. I knew it was stupid, 

considering I hunted them anyway. But it was just that thought that kept me 

grounded. 

Normal.

He is what shattered that illusion.

It was in this precise order my brain allowed me to absorb him, too slow to assess the 

actual amount of threat approaching me.

On first sight, I knew he was not human, but I could hardly call him another ‘it’.

Long, thin black leather coat, black shirt, black leather pants and black biker boots, if

he might have been human, that was a good enough sign of trouble on its own already.

With a deadly swagger, he stalked towards me, his stormy blue eyes betraying no motive 

nor thought. He kept them focused, dead-set on me, like he sensed every thought and 

emotion that reverberated through me, which I could tell you this; was cold, hard 

fear. 

With my back brushing the wall, and both of my palms pressed against the foundation 

on either of my sides, I didn’t have the strength or will to make a run for it. I just 

stood there, staring, waiting for the blonde whatever he was to descend on me. 

Probably to kill me, but my body wouldn’t budge, that is, until the tiny lamp on the 

wall between me and him exploded. In that split second that there was still light, I could see him as he staggered back with surprise bearing his face, before it went dark around us.

I was breathing way too heavily, I realized, and my heart was hammering excessively 

against my ribcage. My human instincts finally kicked in and I fled the scene. I felt my way around the corner of the wall until I knocked my foot into the bottom of something hard. I cursed under my breath, and stretched my hand before me and figured out I was standing at the foot of a steel staircase.

I felt my way upwards, careful not to trip, listening intently for any movement behind 

me. I could hear nothing but my own ragged breathing. I did not delay for a 

heartbeat, and kept moving. I think I was about eight, maybe nine stories high up and just about certain I had outrun him, when I heard a man laugh.

Right next to me.

His breath hot on my cheek.

I froze.

My body felt like it was about to fall through the floor. The laugh was definitely not 

the kind you would wish to hear from somewhere in the dark. It was malicious and intended to be cold enough to cut through your nerves, freezing it with fear.

 “This has turned out to be a quite interesting evening,” he drawled.

It was not the kind of voice I would have paired with the blonde god. It was too dark, too edgy and too smooth and above all, ancient. I bolted up the final flight of stairs, stumbling to the floor when I missed the final step. I got back to my feet instantly. It was an attempt in vain; I knew that, but I wasn’t about to go down without a fight. 

“You can’t outrun the damned, woman”

I gasped when the voice came from right in front of me. 

Impossible!

I would have known if he had passed me on the staircase. I would have felt it, at least.

Could I have been in such a daze of fright that I may have not noticed?

“Who knew you rolled with the lower-caste of the damned, Azriel. Desperation gotten 

the better of you?”

Every muscle in my back tightened.

That was the kind of voice I would have expected from the blonde god, and it came 

from right behind me.

If you have ever found yourself in the kind of situation where you know you are about 

to get seriously injured, you would understand what I was feeling. For an example; 

you swing too high and like you are caught in slow motion, your butt glides of the 

swing and you lose your grip on the chains and you know you are about to plummet 

face first in to the earth and there was nothing you could do about it? – yeah, it was 

something like that, only about a zillion times worse.

I knew I was about to plummet face first in to the earth, bloody nose and all. And 

something told me, I had more than a bloody nose to worry about.

“Draven, it has been a long time brother” the cold voice retorted. If only I could see s**t.

It was pitch black in this part of the building. In the distance, in front of me, there 

was a slight splash of light coming through a dirty window. I trailed my gaze from 

the dim light and spotted an open door, leading to the roof of the building. My heart 

started to beat faster when my only hope creaked noisily in the sudden uproar of 

wind coming from outside.

“I was busy” the blonde man, Draven, responded. He must have moved, because his 

voice came from right next to me.

“So the rumours claimed. Hunting your own kind, brother? That is a slap in the 

face” Azriel said.

“Hunting humans now, Azriel?” Draven ignored the remark.

His kind. Humans… Did I even want to know?

Azriel laughed. It echoed off the walls of the empty building, giving me chills.

“Yes, well. I am lacking a minion or two. Thinking a pretty girl or two might do the 

trick. Purpose and entertainment included” 

A light bulb flickered on from right above us. The irony, the bulb was shattered, yet a 

ball of red light pulsed where the normal light would have been if it had worked 

correctly. But the red light was just wrong. Not only was the vibe it gave melancholic, 

I had full view of the two men. Though I think men was the last thing I should 

probably consider calling them. Dark gods would be more fitting. 

The damned, Azriel had said. 

And the damned was watching me tentatively. Both of them. While the one called 

Draven was frowning; it was Azriel that had me a bit more worried.

His lips was curled in a mischievous smile, his dark eyes giving me the look-over 

from head to toe, and then worked their way back up. 

“This one certainly fits the bill” he smirked, when his gaze landed on my panic-stricken face.

“Considering your location of choice, this is the stupidest thing I have yet seen you do” Draven remarked. “An entire world out of your permitted range, don’t you think?”

“Stupid?” Azriel arched a dark brow “meddling is considered stupid, brother”

Draven didn’t respond. 

“Back off while you have the chance, and let me finish what I came here for” Azriel’s

eyes dropped back to mine. I instinctively knew that Draven too was watching me as well.